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most new age hippies are possers, all they do is dress like hippies and get high. Maybe thats what the real ones did too, I don't know.

--------------------"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks

Everyone I have come in contact with seems to have a different definition. A lot of my friends call me a hippie, because I am a philosophical/spiritual person. I spend my time contemplating my life, and life in general, and I have a pretty positive, and loving outlook on it all. I am also really in touch with nature. I also smoke pot (about once every 1 - 2 weeks), and I eat mushrooms much rarer than that. This is why I am called a hippie.

I do not have a one certain definition for a hippie, and rarely use such words. This is because I believe that defining and judging someone with only one word, is very limiting in the possibility of experiencing that person for who they really are.

Either way... All of the "hippies" I know, I love. These hippies that I know aren't just potheads with dreads and bell bottoms. They are people who live somewhat detached from society, usually off in the middle of nowhere. They generally dress "funky", they may have dreads, and may smoke pot. But usually they are just loving people, who have decided to remove themselves from the status quo, and do their own thing to some degree. Alot of them are musicians, painters, writers, etc.

But I still hesitate to refer to them as hippies.

So, what exactly do you mean by hippie?

btw, I agree with BellyLard that the new agey people come off as posers almost. It seems to me that a lot of them are new agey to almost justify something about themselves. They talk the talk, and preach the talk, but I haven't seen many who really walk the walk. However these people don't usually fit my definition of a hippie.

What a great post. I have always thought of "hippies" in the terms you use for yourself. There are still quite a few in the area I live in and they are mostly fine people. They have all the faults that humans have but are more loving and relaxed about things. I have always considered myself one, for the last 34 years at least. I lost interest in the lable years ago for the reasons you stated.

-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Hippie (or sometimes "hippy") is a term originally used to describe some of the rebellious youth of the 1960s and 1970s.

Though not a cohesive cultural movement with manifestos and leaders, hippies expressed their desire for change with communal or nomadic lifestyles, by renouncing corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, by embracing aspects of non-traditional religious cultures, and with criticism of Western middle class values. Criticism included the views that the goverment was paternalistic, corporate industry was greedy and domineering, traditional morals were askew, and war was inhumane. The structures and institutions they rejected came to be called the establishment.

"Hippie" is also used, in a derogatory sense, to describe long-haired unkempt drug users, regardless of their socio-political beliefs.

Originally I think the term represented an ideal, but these days it has a very negative connotation. People who look for reasons to take drugs and not take baths while maintaining lax moral standards will use the term to ennoble themselves. Originally, the "hippie" was supposed to stand for a cause...or at least ideals about lifestyle...but I have never met a real one (who was self declared). Those who are genuine probably shun the title.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

"Society, for the lack of a better word, brainwashes us to see the "normal" human, which is actually nothing like the natural human. But we grow so used to seeing that human everywhere, on TV, in magazines, in real life, that once we see the natural human we're repulsed by the change our minds must go through."

Maybe a hippie, as it manifests into this time and age (in my definition) is someone who not only sees the "natural human", but also accepts it as the way we (they?) should be. This leads to a much more loving, objective, and accepting state of being. Psychedelics (in my observations) tend to put people in a state that is more in touch with "nature". Which may be why some people seem to relate to "the psychedelic experience" (or at least "This" psychedelic experience). This also would explain why lots of people live "back to the land" as the phrase goes. This is a hippie.

When you catagorize someone, certain ideas about that person will automatically become attached to them that might not be true. This is merely making assumptions and generalizing others.

Hippies are a media invention and as such they are forced to play certain medai oriented roles. Once the label is attached, money can be made.

--------------------Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.---senior doobie

I wish I knew some hippies. I know a long-haired musician who plays a lot of Allman Brothers, but he voted for G. W. Bush! He did turn me on to the first hashish that I've had in about 25 years however, but he's never dosed himself. I'm lucky if most guys my age still have hair (I'm very fortunate in that physical identity department thing) let alone any interest in inner exploration - not to mention Passion for inner exploration. Most guys my age have fallen asleep in life. They are in mid-life, getting more tired and lazy and complacent. They want more baubles for their mindless and materialistic wives, expensive summer camp for their spoiled children. In a nutshell, more money. They won't slap themselves awake, or into shape, any more. They are content to become old men. They never married hippy women either. I live in a horribly stupid and materialistic place - Miami. Even if I pass for 15 or so years younger than I am, the people in that 35 year old range are not, or are no longer hippies. I'm caught in a weird kind of time-warp which is even more isolating than just being 51 years old.

I don't have children, there won't be grandchildren. I can't relate to the developmental stages of my friends. Hanging with people 30 years younger just seems pathetic at best and perverted at worst, but people in that age range are still asking questions, still alive and growing (unlike my peers ). I will be a hippy no matter how old I become, in the most idealistic sense of the word: philosophical, non-pretentious, non-plastic, peace and love loving, youthful, anti-establishment (disliking lawyers even more than cops!), blue-jeans-wearing, clean of body, mind and heart, and perhaps most of all - psychedelic

There are still many older enthusiasts around...but I know what you mean...to my peers the quality relating to how well you can hold your acid would be met with shock at best...I would probably be told that I would go to Hell, considering where I live. I have already been told that I am serving Satan by allowing my 16 yr old son to play heavy metal guitar...

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Satan they say? Not some lesser demon, some mere minion of Hell? You should consult a dictionary of demonology and see if your accusers can conduct a discussion along these lines. It would be a serious version of Dungeons & Dragons

The person in question would not be able to, though they are a school teacher with a masters degree, they only spew what they hear in church. There is a variety of Christian around here known as Southern Baptist, there is a standard for them to follow I think, but they seem to adopt the peculiarities and dysfunctions that the individual preachers bring to the church. I am friends with one Baptist preacher who can read Hebrew and is a true Biblical scholar. He has many enlightened ideas, and has provided me, a non-Christian, with guidance without prejudice. Then there are others who talk of Satan creeping around everywhere and even use racial slurs in church. So, there is a wide variety expressed in the word Baptist. Perhaps I should not let my son wear T-Shirts with band names like "Cannibal Corpse" or "Rob Zombie" on them to school, but I like him to express himself honestly. He is in every way a kind and courteous person...but too many people are hung up on image.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

"In 1967 in California something existed that has since been characterized as the Love Generation, the Hippie Movement, the Counter-culture and Flower Power. But those were names given it by the media. Before then it was more or less unconditioned, and it consisted of people who believed in being unconditioned - in finding their faces before birth. They hadn't decided to be the Love Generation; they had decided to put aside striving for appearances.

An interview was published in the Los Angeles Oracle, a transcript of a conversation between Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder and Alan Watts. At one point they chatted about the flamboyant new people populating the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Alan Watts said that as soon as somebody discovered a name for the phenomenon, it would kill it.

Although we sometimes called ourselves hip or hipsters or hippies or flower children, at that time those were just names among many that seemed occasionally fitting. As a social entity we were not yet stereotyped. Between a hard-bopping hipster and a gentle flower child there was a distinction, and neither label stretched to include us all.

Usually we called ourselves heads. Pot heads, acid heads, or both. Bohemians, Beatniks, mutants, freaks and groovy people were names used with due caution. For in those days what we called ourselves was not to obscure what we were, and what we were was open to experience."

"Hippies don't like to take baths!" became a popular cliche and so everyone opposed to personal cleanliness ran away from home and joined us. Whoever originated that rumor was probably speaking for how they themselves would have opted to behave in an atmosphere of freedom. Mechanisms of self-fulfilling prophecy insured that every unseemly trait projected our way by those who feared themselves would become the truth in short order, for Time and Newsweek began to function as recruiti ng literature. So it was not long before it was no longer hip to be a hippie."